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Dev Diary #19 - Dragon Dawn: Lizardfolk, Tomes and Units

Hello everyone! My name is Luis and I am a designer at Triumph. I got the privilege of being the main designer for Dragon Dawn, our first content pack. In this dev diary I will go over the new Lizardfolk form and the new tomes of magic, as well as their units.

Lizardfolk​

Lizardfolk are very thematic for the dragon themed dlc and we knew people have been wanting them since the game was announced, so we are very excited to give players access to this new form.

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By default they have a new body trait that is going out with the free Wyvern Update, the Poisonous trait. This has a 30% chance to Poison melee attackers and also gives them a bit of Blight resistance. Lizardfolk also come with the Cold Blooded mind trait, which reduces the morale they lose in battle.

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There’s a lot of ways to customize your Lizardfolk with a variety of heads and decorations, from snakes to crocodiles to chameleons and others, so you can make what your heart desires.

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Tomes​

For the first time we will be doing mixed affinity tomes, and you can expect this trend to continue as new content and expansion packs come out.
For Dragon Dawn I wanted the tomes to represent the power of destruction and creation that is often associated with dragons so both new tomes come with the Chaos and Nature affinity.

Tome of Evolution - Tier I

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As the name suggests this tome is all about evolving units and comes with two units that benefit from this.

Slither Hatchling

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The slither hatchling is a skirmisher that counts as an animal and a dragon unit, so they have the Low Maintenance most animals have as well as the damage increase granted by Draconic Rage (this triggers when a dragon unit drops below 60%hit points). They can also apply Poisoned with their ranged attack and their melee attacks deal extra damage to Poisoned units!

Of course, this is the Tome of Evolution, so when they reach the champion rank they turn into a Tier 3 unit, the Slither.

Slither

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The Slither is a Tier 3 unit and has all the benefits of the Hatchling, just stronger. It also has the Slip Away ability that triggers once per battle when it takes fatal damage. This makes the unit quickly escape to a nearby hex and regain15 health.

Wyvern Fledgling

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The Wyvern Fledgling is a fighter unit and a strategic summon from this tome. It is a very simple dragon unit that can evolve into a random Tier 3 Wyvern. That includes the Fire and Frost Wyvern but with this pack we also introduce the Golden and Obsidian wyvern which this unit can also evolve into!

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Unit Enchantment - Rapid Evolution Enchantment

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To make sure you can evolve your units, we added an enchantment that only affects units that can Evolve. It grants XP gained from combat as well as giving Tier 1 and 2 units Resurgence, meaning that if they die in battle but you are still victorious then the unit comes back with low hit points after battle.

Minor Race Transformation - Draconic Vitality

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So other units benefit from this tome, we have a minor race transformation that takes the concept of growth causing units to benefit more from their unit ranks more. Draconic Vitality grants +3 Hit Points per rank the unit has and makes them look more reptilian and spiky.

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Tome of Dragons - Tier III

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The second tome you can unlock is all about the power of and acquiring Dragons and turning your units into Draconians.

Young Dragons

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Young dragons are Tier 3 Fighter units. While they may look like their adult counterparts they don’t yet have their elemental breath weapon or the extra damage on their claws. Once you research this skill you will be able to draft the Young Frost and Fire Dragons in your cities. Gold and Obsidian Dragons are new in this content pack and you can also get their young versions as long as you meet certain alignment requirements. When these units reach champion rank, they evolve into their Tier 5 adult forms.

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Unit Enchantment - Flamer Focus

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The flamer focus is a reference to the Draconians from Age of Wonders 3, the Flamer unit had a Fire Bomb ability which this enchantment is recreating for Age of Wonder 4. It applies to Battle Mages and grants a full action ability that deals damage to a target and half to adjacent units while also applying Burning and Bleeding to those affected.

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Major Race Transformation - Draconian Transformation

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The draconian transformation turns your race into Dragon humanoid hybrids. The Dragon type grants all racial units Draconic Rage, increasing their damage when they are under 60% hit points. This transformation also gives Burning Immunity and Natural Regeneration which causes units to recover hit points up to the amount they started battle with.

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This is a brief view of what you can find in the tomes. The Dragon Dawn content pack is coming out on the 20th of June and I hope to see your Lizardfolk and Dragon Lord creations and mighty dragon armies!
 

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This does kinda lead to one of sad things about forms: that 3d models are mostly just edits of the same skeleton with different textures, feet/hands and heads.

By what I mean is that I prefer interpretation of lizardfolk where female are the big beefy ones xD Always liked female shakarn commanders in planetfall being the bigger ones as well
 
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This does kinda lead to one of sad things about forms: that 3d models are mostly just edits of the same skeleton with different textures, feet/hands and heads.

By what I mean is that I prefer interpretation of lizardfolk where female are the big beefy ones xD Always liked female shakarn commanders in planetfall being the bigger ones as well
While that would be a neat touch, it would require a ton of work on their part since designing completely new skeletons is a huge pain in the butt.

That's sort of the problem with customizable factions like this: you have to make everything reusable a dozen different ways in order to justify its inclusion. You don't have one dragon skeleton; you have 10, for example. If they added only one dragon - say, Bone Dragon - then they'd struggle to justify all the effort that went into designing it.

So you see everything - skeletons, skins, etc., - being reused a lot of different ways. A bit of necessary corner cutting to get all the content they want into the game. It's pretty common practice, tbh.

I do think some options for dimorphism (like different heights/sizes for different sexes) could be fun, though. Or maybe making a faction matriarchal or patriarchal so that certain types of units (pike, mage, etc.,) are gender-exclusive could be neat. Ironically, as much choice as they give us in faction creation, they've given us just enough that we want a whole lot more.

Like being able to start as an undead faction.
Hint hint, Paradox. :mad:
 
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While the evolved adult dragons lose their animal, fighter, and evolve traits, they will be weaker than their buffed-up young counterparts. Why don't we have an enchantment that the adult dragons can benefit from?
 
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I noticed that in the background of the various lizardman type portraits, the actual racial units appeared to all just have croc heads. Does this mean you can only customize the lizard type of your leader, not the race as a whole?

Also, does the race really not have digitigrade legs? The concept art shows digitigrade legs, but the form screen picture shows plantigrade legs.

And finally, is there a reason why the Slither wasn't used to make a new racial mount for them?
 
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I noticed that in the background of the various lizardman type portraits, the actual racial units appeared to all just have croc heads. Does this mean you can only customize the lizard type of your leader, not the race as a whole?

They probably took the screenshots from a single game. I remember (I think from PotatoMcWhiskey's Let's Play) a video that was cycling through the different head options for the race.

Also, does the race really not have digitigrade legs? The concept art shows digitigrade legs, but the form screen picture shows plantigrade legs.

I imagine digitigrade legs didn't work with the modular design they're using to reduce the work required to create all the variations of units.
 
They probably took the screenshots from a single game. I remember (I think from PotatoMcWhiskey's Let's Play) a video that was cycling through the different head options for the race.



I imagine digitigrade legs didn't work with the modular design they're using to reduce the work required to create all the variations of units.

Okay, it'll be great if the race can change heads too.

As for the digitigrade legs, they already have that for Tigrans and Ratfolk, so it shouldn't interfere with anything.
 
I noticed that in the background of the various lizardman type portraits, the actual racial units appeared to all just have croc heads. Does this mean you can only customize the lizard type of your leader, not the race as a whole?

....
There are something like 7 head sets for units: crocs, lizards, shakarn/dino , skinks, cobra snakes, chameleons, mixed.
 
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